1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a conditioned air distribution structure for an automotive air conditioning system which can enhance a comfortable feeling, that rear-seat passengers can feel in an air-conditioned atmosphere within a passenger compartment, by providing, mainly in an air conditioning unit for front-seat occupants, a rear face duct for delivering conditioned air toward the upper body of the rear-seat passenger and a rear foot duct for delivering conditioned air toward the lower body of the rear-seat passenger.
2. Description of the Related Art
The applicant of this patent application has filed a patent application for an automotive air conditioning system as described above, which has been published as JP-A-11-235916. The automotive air conditioning system in which the rear-face duct and the rear foot duct are provided, is intended to be small in size and the rear face duct and the rear foot duct are disposed in such a manner as to overlap each other in a longitudinal direction of the vehicle somewhere along the length of a downwardly extending portion of each of the ducts.
Then, the foot-duct is caused to branch into a right-hand side duct portion and a left-hand side duct portion at an intermediate location along an air downstream side of the foot-duct, and a space produced by so branching the foot duct, that is, a dead space has been found useful for the rear face duct to be disposed therein in such a manner that the rear face duct is bent toward the front of the vehicle so as to enter the dead space, whereby the longitudinal size of the air conditioning unit can be decreased.
In the conventional automotive air conditioning system, however, a rear face inlet port and a foot inlet port are disposed in such a manner as to overlap each other vertically somewhere along the length of each of the ports in a transverse direction of the vehicle, and moreover, the rear face duct and the rear foot duct are disposed in such a manner as to overlap each other in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle somewhere along the length of the downwardly extending portion of each of the ducts. Due to this construction, there remains a problem that the length (size) of the air conditioning unit cannot be decreased vertically and longitudinally at those overlapping portions.